What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Grigoris wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:53 pm You know which country has the highest rate of vegetarianism?
India has the highest rate of vegetarianism in any country, as far as I know, and areas of idea where vegetarianism is most prevalent commonly rely on milk as an alternative nutrient source to meat.
Due primarily to religious restrictions, vegetarianism is widespread in India. But very few Indians follow a vegan diet in which all animal products are avoided. Milk and other dairy products, derived from both cows and water buffalos, are avidly consumed across a large portion of the country. Indeed, India is the largest milk producer in the world by a good margin, having recently surpassed the entire European Union, and Pakistan ranks fourth. Milk is India’s leading agricultural commodity, produced on some 75 million dairy farms, most of which are quite small. Beginning in 1970, the Indian government provided high levels of support for the dairy industry through its “Operation Flood,” which doubled per capita milk consumption in a 30-year period.
https://thewire.in/uncategorised/mappin ... t-in-india
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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Dharma Flower wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 2:07 pmIndia has the highest rate of vegetarianism in any country, as far as I know, and areas of idea where vegetarianism is most prevalent commonly rely on milk as an alternative nutrient source to meat.
And thus the "first world luxury" theory... :toilet:
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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Dharma Flower wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 12:36 pm It's kind of sad that there aren't more popular films that promote a balanced diet, that includes a healthy balance of meat, vegetables, fruits, and starches. It seems that the popular diet-related documentaries these days promote veganism, the keto diet, or some other fad or restrictive diet.
Come on. You've been promoting a low-fat diet, a fad diet unfortunately enduring for decades with ill-deserved publicity. Are we going to redefine restrictive? :tongue:
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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Cianan wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 4:55 pm
Dharma Flower wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 12:36 pm It's kind of sad that there aren't more popular films that promote a balanced diet, that includes a healthy balance of meat, vegetables, fruits, and starches. It seems that the popular diet-related documentaries these days promote veganism, the keto diet, or some other fad or restrictive diet.
Come on. You've been promoting a low-fat diet, a fad diet unfortunately enduring for decades with ill-deserved publicity. Are we going to redefine restrictive? :tongue:

I'll define sensible restriction - if you are predisposed to have high cholesterol, a diet producing higher levels of cholesterol may well kill you. If you are diabetic, have an ethnic predisposition etc. you may want to think before beleiveign that a diet high in sugar is better than one high in fat.

Ignore the media campaigns which flim-flam between demonising fat and sugar and use a bit of common sense - clealry we have an obesity crisis because people are dimwitted and easily led, not because the world has sugar and fat in it. Persuading people to give up their fat and sugar is probably far less easy than asking them to give up their guns, even though they are using them to kill themselves.
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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Mantrik wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 5:13 pm
Cianan wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 4:55 pm
Dharma Flower wrote: Sun Apr 08, 2018 12:36 pm It's kind of sad that there aren't more popular films that promote a balanced diet, that includes a healthy balance of meat, vegetables, fruits, and starches. It seems that the popular diet-related documentaries these days promote veganism, the keto diet, or some other fad or restrictive diet.
Come on. You've been promoting a low-fat diet, a fad diet unfortunately enduring for decades with ill-deserved publicity. Are we going to redefine restrictive? :tongue:

I'll define sensible restriction - if you are predisposed to have high cholesterol, a diet producing higher levels of cholesterol may well kill you. If you are diabetic, have an ethnic predisposition etc. you may want to think before beleiveign that a diet high in sugar is better than one high in fat.

Ignore the media campaigns which flim-flam between demonising fat and sugar and use a bit of common sense - clealry we have an obesity crisis because people are dimwitted and easily led, not because the world has sugar and fat in it. Persuading people to give up their fat and sugar is probably far less easy than asking them to give up their guns, even though they are using them to kill themselves.
I know what you're saying, but you also need to consider that public notions about fat have also been based in deeply flawed data.

Would you believe me if I said I completely healed myself of obesity and numerous risk factors for disease by switching to a mostly fat diet? I'm not in ketosis, I eat starch, but I still eat at least 750 calories in high-quality fat every day (I love butter, nuts and coconut!), including saturated fat, and I now have a body like that of an athlete who has never been fat in their life. I maintain my health just by walking. Someone who has been obese is usually observed gaining weight and keeping fat more easily no matter what they do, but it was as though eating fat made my body unrecognizable due to a newfound speedy, healthy metabolism and resistance to weight gain. It changed everything. I can't reconcile what is typically said of fats either with recent, reliable studies or my personal experience.
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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Cianan wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 5:38 pm
Mantrik wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 5:13 pm
Cianan wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 4:55 pm

Come on. You've been promoting a low-fat diet, a fad diet unfortunately enduring for decades with ill-deserved publicity. Are we going to redefine restrictive? :tongue:

I'll define sensible restriction - if you are predisposed to have high cholesterol, a diet producing higher levels of cholesterol may well kill you. If you are diabetic, have an ethnic predisposition etc. you may want to think before beleiveign that a diet high in sugar is better than one high in fat.

Ignore the media campaigns which flim-flam between demonising fat and sugar and use a bit of common sense - clealry we have an obesity crisis because people are dimwitted and easily led, not because the world has sugar and fat in it. Persuading people to give up their fat and sugar is probably far less easy than asking them to give up their guns, even though they are using them to kill themselves.
I know what you're saying, but you also need to consider that public notions about fat have also been based in deeply flawed data.

Would you believe me if I said I completely healed myself of obesity and numerous risk factors for disease by switching to a mostly fat diet? I'm not in ketosis, I eat starch, but I still eat at least 750 calories in high-quality fat every day (I love butter, nuts and coconut!), including saturated fat, and I now have a body like that of an athlete who has never been fat in their life. I maintain my health just by walking. Someone who has been obese is usually observed gaining weight and keeping fat more easily no matter what they do, but it was as though eating fat made my body unrecognizable due to a newfound speedy, healthy metabolism and resistance to weight gain. It changed everything. I can't reconcile what is typically said of fats either with recent, reliable studies or my personal experience.
In the context if this thread, I see high fat and high sugar calorie-dense diets spreading to parts of Asia and creating the same obesity issues we have in the West. Whatever your diet and wherever you live, the simple formula is that if you consume more calories than you need you will put on weight. Similarly, you will lose weight even if you eat loads of fat. I know vegan and vegetarian people at the gym with massive muscles and others who are endurance athletes , and they don't over-indulge in any food group, so like you I am more inclined to believe my own experience than studies when it comes to the food industry. (Of course, vegans can eat too much fat and sugar and become obese too.)

I haven't been to India for some time, but last time I was there I sat down to dinner with half a dozen people whose 'ice-breaker' was to discuss their badge of honour - yes, they had all managed to become diabetic. Whatever we are predisposed to, in terms of disease, we would do well to heed.
Btw, didn't the super-fit Atkins, of the high fat Atkins Diet, drop dead with heart trouble?
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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Grigoris wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 4:45 pm
Dharma Flower wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 2:07 pmIndia has the highest rate of vegetarianism in any country, as far as I know, and areas of idea where vegetarianism is most prevalent commonly rely on milk as an alternative nutrient source to meat.
And thus the "first world luxury" theory... :toilet:
In India, what typically happens to bulls and barren cows, since they're unable to produce milk?
Several million pregnant female bovines are brought into Indian cities for fresh milk. Half the calves they deliver are males that are an economic liability so they are killed as soon as the milking steadies. They are not humanely slaughtered but are usually tied in the sun to slowly die of thirst and hunger. The state wise data shows that that economic compulsions outweigh religious sentiment in almost all urban and rural areas despite claims to the contrary.

India also has a serious problem with roughly 80 million old and unproductive cattle that are driven away until they die of hunger or illness. They do not harmlessly forage on barren land but, driven by hunger, raid productive farms and face the wrath of farmers who mercilessly beat and even kill them. They are a huge economic liability that takes food and economic opportunities away from millions of needy people.
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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Cianan wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 4:55 pm Come on. You've been promoting a low-fat diet, a fad diet unfortunately enduring for decades with ill-deserved publicity. Are we going to redefine restrictive? :tongue:
Heart experts tend to recommend lean meats over fatty meats:
https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/node/24044
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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Dharma Flower wrote: Tue Apr 10, 2018 5:20 am In India, what typically happens to bulls and barren cows, since they're unable to produce milk?
Which is completely irrelevant to the point we were discussing and an attempt by you to shift the goal posts.
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"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Grigoris wrote: Tue Apr 10, 2018 7:38 am
Dharma Flower wrote: Tue Apr 10, 2018 5:20 am In India, what typically happens to bulls and barren cows, since they're unable to produce milk?
Which is completely irrelevant to the point we were discussing and an attempt by you to shift the goal posts.
In buying cow's milk, regardless of the country, one is financially supporting an industry that depends on causing the death and often maltreatment of cows.
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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Dharma Flower wrote: Tue Apr 10, 2018 2:56 pm
Grigoris wrote: Tue Apr 10, 2018 7:38 am
Dharma Flower wrote: Tue Apr 10, 2018 5:20 am In India, what typically happens to bulls and barren cows, since they're unable to produce milk?
Which is completely irrelevant to the point we were discussing and an attempt by you to shift the goal posts.
In buying cow's milk, regardless of the country, one is financially supporting an industry that depends on causing the death and often maltreatment of cows.
Like I said: this is completely irrelevant to the topic of the thread. Do you know what the topic of the thread is?
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Grigoris wrote: Tue Apr 10, 2018 7:10 pm Like I said: this is completely irrelevant to the topic of the thread. Do you know what the topic of the thread is?
Returning to the original topic of this thread: Let's not forget that a majority of people in India eat meat, as they do in other Asian countries. The biggest difference between Asian countries and the West, in terms of meat consumption, is that Asian meat-eaters typically eat much less meat than Westerners typically do, and typically have less diet-related health problems because of it.
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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Before Honen and Shinran’s time, Buddhism in Japan was mainly for the elites. By opening up a form of Buddhism for people like fishermen and hunters, doing their best to support their families, Buddhism became available to the common people of Japan. In Japan today, vegetarianism is very uncommon, except for celibate monks. Married monks, in the various sects, aren't expected to abstain from meat.
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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Dharma Flower wrote: Tue Apr 10, 2018 10:12 pm In Japan today, vegetarianism is very uncommon, except for celibate monks. Married monks, in the various sects, aren't expected to abstain from meat.
When vegetarians newly find themselves in Japan, its not uncommon for them to find bits of meat like bacon in their meal even after they have confirmed that a dish is vegetarian. Apparently, unless the meat is an actual main ingredient in a dish, its not a meat dish, and bits of bacon don't count. :rolling:
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Re: What is the Typical Asian Diet?

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Temple Grandin, though not a vegan or vegetarian, has dedicated her life to improving the treatment of farm animals:


Perhaps we can be realistic that a majority of people will not give up meat, and try to make conditions better for farm animals instead.
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